


after hours

by kwritten



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/F, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 09:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2223855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>at twenty-seven, Jenny Humphrey is working at Waldorf Designs and has a sudden career change</p>
            </blockquote>





	after hours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nereid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/gifts).



Jenny Humphrey tells herself that she, at twenty-seven, is once again at the beck and call for Blair Waldorf for one reason and one reason only. That she, after so much success and so much growth, is standing in front of an elevator with a slim vanilla latte in her hand and a clipboard full of schedules and paperwork and a headset attached to her head wearing perfect heels, is once again waiting for Blair Waldorf with a smile for one reason and one reason only.

She’s the only one who will put up with her.

 

 

In the little over two years since she had started working at Waldorf Designs (her contract a fifty page thing of pure beauty in black and white; her own line, her own staff, complete freedom within the conglomerate, her own assistant and office) she had seen about twenty personal assistants come and go through Blair’s door. Each one with a more impressive resume than the last, and none lasting more than a couple of months. It was truly a wonder that Blair kept the company running when half her time seemed absorbed with torturing post-grads.

Jenny told herself that she didn’t notice their bright eyes and sure steps slowly get worn down by Blair’s demands. She was too far away – locked in her own private dream – to notice what tortures Blair rained down on the heads of these new trainees in her life. 

_(She never, ever mused to herself was that what Blair needed was someone who was already trained in her ways, that it was past the time to be taking in fledglings under her wing and expecting them to fly under her weight._

_She never, ever felt guilty for not giving them an encouraging pep talk or taking them aside when she found them crying in the stairwell, for not giving them her hand and leading them towards success._

_She had learned it all when she was much younger than them, with only Blair’s steely gaze to show her the way._

_And look at her now.)_

 

Jenny always stayed late, worked until most of the many bustling floors of Waldorf Designs were dark and barren. She liked to walk through the offices on the main floor (she was hidden three floors above Blair’s main office, far away from the drama and the intrigue of the daily business dealings, left alone with her fabric and her art the way she had wanted it) before leaving at the end of every day. It rejuvenated her on hard, long days – walking through the emptied out bowels of the devil she still felt as though she had sold her soul to.

Some nights – some very few nights when Blair wasn’t in Europe or in the LA office where she spent most of her time – the light under Blair’s door was still on when Jenny walked past. Sometimes it was a harsh, yellow light and behind it Jenny could make out the faint sounds of Blair’s voice rising and falling in annoyance or command. Sometimes there was a dull blue light and the lingering scent of Thai take-out.

 

She was probably the only one who knew that Blair Waldorf-Bass had a day bed in her office for nights when it was just too difficult to face going home. Jenny was probably the only one in the office who knew how rarely the Bass couple actually cohabitated these days. (She had called Dan once and heard Blair’s voice mingling with Serena’s in the background and though no one in the family ever mentioned it, they all knew how much the Bass life was a façade.)

 

In those moments, catching that glimmer of light in the darkness, it didn’t matter how large the space was, or how many people separated them during the day. At night, when all the lights were out, they two were the only ones still working, still pushing, still holding on to the dreams they both knew you never stopped fighting for. In those moments, it was just the two of them wandering about in the dark.

Two old Queens living without their crowns, but still fighting.

_(Just the way she had taught her to.)_

 

 

Perhaps a week (maybe more) after her two-year anniversary of becoming the Bertha Mason hiding in the attic wing of Waldorf Designs, Jenny was tracing her well-worn path through the silent halls when she came upon Blair’s office – doors wide open spilling bright light into the dim space, phones ringing, and her standing bare-footed in the midst of paperwork laid all about the floor in haphazard piles with her hands on her hips and her hair coming out of it’s perfect French twist Jenny had secretly admired in the elevator that morning.

She had every chance to walk away, to back up out of the light and disappear into the streets below as if she had never been there. 

 

Of course, she didn’t. 

 

Brusquely, Jenny strode into the office and looked at her employer (and something of a distant family member she sees at Thanksgiving and something of an old friend or old enemy and three parts childhood hopes personified) inquisitively, “Blair? Everything alright? Can I…?” She let her voice trail off because she was no longer a hopeful teen girl with her heart on her sleeve, desperate to serve and please the untouchable Queen B. She stopped herself because she now had a stubborn streak, and that part of her needed the woman in front of her to _ask_ her for assistance if it was needed.

Blair looked up, her eyes a bit wild and bloodshot and gestured helplessly at the pile of papers, “I seem to have misplaced an assistant.”

Jenny fought back a smile, “I believe that was three assistants ago – you left the poor girl locked in a bathroom stall at a nightclub in Paris.”

Blair blinked and smiled, “Little slut told that sob story to that bitch Helene at Lanvin and got hired on the spot. She neglected to tell anyone that she locked the door herself and had dragged a truly unattractive and drunk man in with her.”

Jenny laughed. A deep, satisfying laugh from far down in her gut. 

It felt a bit like coming home. 

Blair shook her head, “I think the girl this morning put whole milk in my earl grey instead of soy.” 

“Let’s burn her at the stake.”

“It was blasphemous.”

“I feel personally offended just hearing about it.”

“I’m getting quite a reputation, aren’t I?”

“Better a reputation for being a hard-ass bitch that can’t keep an assistant than have no one notice you at all.”

And for a brief moment, no time had passed at all, and once again they were just Blair and Jenny, Queen and Queen-in-Training sitting on the steps of the Met.

Blair cleared her throat, “I’d ask you what you’re doing here so late, but it’s not like you have a social life anyway.”

Jenny’s smile broadened, “You know me.”

“Go home Humphrey.” Blair’s cell phone buzzed on the desk and the landline next to it started ringing as well. They stared down at the two phones. Blair’s voice was very small, but Jenny had been waiting for it, “Unless you think you could…?” 

Her voice trailed off because she wasn’t yet willing to ask for help. Blair Waldorf(-Bass) didn’t need help from underlings like Jenny Humphrey from Brooklyn (which, even after her degrees and her own successful fashion line and the money her line brought under Blair’s umbrella, she would always be).

She dropped her bag on a low chair next to a corner and shook off her jacket. 

“Just for tonight,” she said with her hand on the phone. Blair nodded.

And they both knew they were lying. 

_“Blair Waldorf’s office?”_


End file.
